Kate's Apple Bacon Chicken

I spend a lot of time on thenest.com, prior to The Nest I spent most of my time on theknot.com. When Tony and I first got engaged and we figured we would be having our wedding in July 2009 I then spent most of my time on the July 09 message board for brides, and through that I met a great bunch of girls. Now as wives we like to share recipes, ideas, and all things going on in our married lives since we are all at similar points. We started posting weekly menus a few weeks ago and one of the Nesties, Kate, shared her menu, on it was this delicious sounding meal, apple bacon chicken. She was gracious enough to post the recipe and so today I decided to make it. It was so delicious! Best part is it's a crockpot recipe! Yay! I tweaked her recipe a bit to only make 2 servings, so I halved it and also used lemon juice from a bottle instead of juice from a lemon, oh and I used low fat bacon. So here it goes:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1 lb)
1 apple (I used Granny Smith)
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup barbecue sauce (I used Hunt's Brown Sugar Hickory)
4 slices bacon

Rinse and pat dry the chicken breasts, set aside. Peel, core, and grate the apple (I used my Kitchen Aid shredder attachment, but I really wasn't liking the consistency it grated at). Mix the bbq sauce, lemon juice and apple in a bowl. Wrap each chicken breast with 2 slices of bacon. Place chicken in crockpot and then pour bbq sauce mixture on top of chicken. Cook on low for 8 hours. Here's how it looked before I turned the crockpot on:

The dish tasted very Fall-like to me. Hubby and I both loved it! It was sweet and a bit savory. I served it with couscous, green beans, and sauteed garlic spinach. I had never made the spinach before and I was surprised how easy that was to make. One package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed for about an hour, then peeled and chopped 2 cloves of garlic, 2 tsp evoo in a pan, sautee garlic until brown, add spinach, let it sautee for about 3-4 minutes, I sprinkled with Melting Pot Garlic and Wine seasoning and voila! Delicious dinner and I am sure we will be having this dish again! And the best part? It was low points as well, so it was very easy to stay on track! Thanks Kate for the awesome recipe and idea!! 

40 Clove Garlic Crockpot Chicken

I love garlic. I just adore it. So naturally I am always looking for a delicious recipe in which I can add this delicious ingredient. Luckily hubby also loves garlic, so he is not opposed to my garlic loving overload. I've seen this recipe on other blogs, but it always involved onion, which I hate onion, so I decided to modify it myself. It's incredibly simple and turns out wonderful every time!

Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1-1.5 lbs)
2 bulbs of garlic, separate into cloves and peel all cloves (2 bulbs should yield about 30-40 cloves)
1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Separate and peel all cloves of garlic, this is usually a super time consuming and laborious task, until I discovered the secret. Pop garlic cloves into a pot of boiling water for about 1-2 minutes and the peels just slip right off! Try it, it makes this recipe a thousand times easier! I then put the 2 rinsed and patted dry chicken breasts into a Tupperware type container, throw all garlic cloves in there too, drizzle with the evoo, and then salt and pepper to taste, then I put the lid on the Tupperware and shake it all up to coat the chicken and garlic evenly. Next, place all contents of the Tupperware into your crockpot. I have a 6 qt programmable one, but it should fit in smaller ones as well. I set it for 6 hours on low, and believe me it smells delicious as the garlic is roasting! Here's the finished product, sorry for the crockpot photo, hubby and I devoured this before I could take a more savory pic!

Steel Cut Oatmeal

So in my quest to eat healthily I have converted from instant oatmeal to steel cut or "Irish" oatmeal. There were a couple obstacles to this at first, one the commissary doesn't sell it, two, it takes forever to cook in the morning. Seriously, according to the package directions it takes over 30 minutes to cook on the stovetop. Not so nice and quick for a hungry girl first thing in the morning. After some research I found this awesome way to cook my whole week's worth of breakfast. Enter the crockpot! So first things first, I got my steel cut oats at the local Kroger in the organic section:

 

I then assemble my large Pyrex bowl with 1 cup of oats and 4 cups of water, exactly as the directions on the can says. Then I place about 4 cups of water into my 6 qt crockpot, and put the bowl with the oats and water mixture inside the crockpot. The crockpot will then become a kind of double boiler type thing:

I usually set the crockpot for 8 hours on low right before I go to bed and then voila the next morning I wake up and I have my delicious healthy breakfast waiting for me. Here's how it looks when it's done:

And here is my delicious bowl of steel cut oatmeal and one tablespoon of brown sugar mixed in. Enjoy, I know I do!

Cuban Food! I Miss South Florida...

I've been missing the Cuban food of Miami for a while now. I've always had the thought that I could make some awesome shredded mojo pork in the crockpot, because I can make some awesome BBQ pork in the crockpot. So tonight I decided to try it. I got a pretty good recipe online and made my own marinade and let it marinate overnight. So here's what you'll need: a 1 lb pork tenderloin, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, cumin, lime juice, orange juice, honey, and I threw some Adobo in there too. I didn't measure, but basically you put all the spices in with some oj and lime juice, leave the honey out for now, I put all this in my Magic Bullet and blended, then poked holes in my tenderloin and shot the mixture in it. Then put it a gallon size Ziploc bag and let it soak overnight. This morning I put the tenderloin and the marinade in the crockpot and set it on low for 8 hours. This is how the tenderloin looked in the crockpot when it was done:

Then I took it out and it fell apart, like this:

So then I used those two forks to shred it all up. Next, I made a sauce. Here's the recipe for the sauce:

1/3 cup OJ

1 Tbsp Lime Juice

1 Tbsp Fresh Minced Garlic

2 Tbsp Honey

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Again I mixed it all together with my Magic Bullet and then heated the mixture for a few seconds in the microwave and then poured it all over the shredded meat in crockpot.

Next, it was time to make the zucchini and squash. I love zucchini and squash! Here is my not so secret recipe of how I make it:

1 large zucchini

1 large yellow squash

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

lots of Goya Adobo

Slice the zucchini and squash in half lengthwise and then chop, making half moon shapes, throw it into a large saucepan with the olive oil and sprinkle liberally with Adobo, cook on medium-high for about 5 minutes until veggies are tender.

And voila, here's the finished meal, not exactly La Carreta, but hubby and I definitely enjoyed, and I loved how easy it was!